Hi Non,
This IS an interesting thing you're trying to tease out....it's had me trying to wrap my head around it to see what you're getting at.
I just had a thought though.....I read a lot of neuroscience-y stuff (for the general reader), including on the actual sites (note: multiple) in our brains where perception / memories / associations / etc etc etc are being found - or not - to originate.
This, combined with just ordinary life experience, makes me wonder if what you described in your original post is the key. You were correctly pinpointing a memory trace, which built up a particular association in your mind over your lifetime. And of course, alcoholic drinking built on that.
So I'm guessing that your other example of 'that drink looks tasty....' (or whatever small, even tiny fleeting thought of that nature may not, imho, be your Beast necessarily. My idea of the Beast is that it in effect amplifies, expands, builds on, does a big dance, ramps up the volume and colours, etc of what is a mere memory association / trace, and then, as per RR's thesis, utilises our neo-cortex to 'speak' as it were through our AV.
Hmmm. Dunno really, but worth chewing the cud over (briefly :-))